Permira's recent purchase of a 49% stake in Rodenstock, a spectacle manufacturer, is a rare example of a German family-owned company embracing private equity.

Germany is rich in family-owned companies with 45,000 of between 50 and 249 employees that are mostly family or privately-owned, according to EIM Business & Policy Research. This is almost twice as many as the UK, which has 25,000, and almost three times as many as Italy, which has 16,000.